CMS and threat evasion

[GeorgeLKMT]

Hey guys.

 

This is something that I cannot really find in manuals and internet isn't helpful either, so I'm going to ask more experienced. There are two things that interests me at the moment:

 

CMS programs: So, I know how to use the CMSP/CMSC, but how should I treat the programs to maximize the effectivity of CMS? I heard that it's better to use manual instead of (semi)auto, so are you just memorize which program is which and switch between them according to threat? Or it is better to create custom ones?

 

Missile evasion: Are there any helpful resources that would help me with missile evasion except "get shot at and try your best until you learn it"? Or is that the only way? Some theory for proper evasion while getting targeted at low altitude, high altitude, head on, 9/3, close, far, etc... I know it's probably better to evade or disable the SAMs, but that's not going to help me once the missile is on the way.

 

Thanks.

[escaner]

Regarding the default countermeasure programs:

Last column meaning:

C: number of chaff per release

F: number of flares per release

I: interval between releases (in seconds)

C: count of releases

 

Program

Name

C/F/I/C

A

Old gen radar SAM

2/0/1.0/10

B

Cur gen radar SAM

4/0/0.5/10

C

IR SAM

0/4/0.2/5

D

Mix 1

2/2/1.0/10

E

Mix 2

2/2/0.5/10

F

Mix 3

4/4/1.0/10

G

Mix 4

4/4/0.5/10

H

Chaff single

1/0/1.0/1

I

Chaff pairs

2/0/1.0/1

J

Flare single

0/1/1.0/1

K

Flare pairs

0/2/1.0/1

L

Chaff pre-empt

1/0/1.0/20

M

Flare pre-empt

0/1/1.0/20

 

Personally I have configured my own programs in V through Z (flare pre-empt, IR missile, mix, radar missile & chaff pre-empt), those are the ones I use and much easier to switch from one to another being closer, but it is personal taste.

 

As for evading SAMs.

 

At hight altitude, a split S is pretty useful to change direction away from the threat while dropping CM without losing speed.

At low altitude, terrain masking is best if available. Otherwise, when in the open, diving (or a series of dive-climb-dive) can make the missile hit the ground, as they go lead pursuit for intercept.

 

Also, set throttles to idle for a moment when flaring an incoming IR missile. That reduces your IR signature and the chance that it will go after the decoys is improved.

[EasyEB]

I'm no expert, but two simple things is 1 - turn so the missile is coming towards you on your 9 or 3 o' clock. Makes the missile spend more energy charing you, and 2 - dive to make the missile chasing you correct itself into the ground.

[WildBillKelsoe]

For CMS, knowledge of SAM system guidance mode, maximum and minimum ranges, ceiling, G's it can pull, and mach number is all info you need. For execution, it is good to always keep in mind that at least one system is tracking you. This information, while erroneous at some parts of encyclopedia, is a good hand to at least plan arcing.

 

This topic is huge, but from my simming experience and reading A-10/ F-16 books, I can say to defeat a SAM in a slow plane like hog is suicidal. It is best to plan where your attacks are going to occur, elevations you could use, reaction time and tracking time.

 

One rule I use is, if its painting me, jam and chaff. If not, flare and flare more. You can program defaults LUA parameters to your liking, but I find that under normal circumstances most of time, default programs are the best if you could print them out and put them infront of you. And yes I'm an advocate of manual mode, at least because when I see a 3/6/8 on scope, I can hit SAM 1, jam it, then beam it. If he fires, I have unobstructed view to react, usually by putting him at 6 o'clock and using chaffs plenty to increase my radar cross section. If its still tracking me, I'm a dead man. If not, I can usually know the source patch on earth that fired it, quickly enough to shoot a maverick.

 

I remember flying online once with 4 ships that I was just observing them getting shot at. It is kind of cool when you spot the shooter and kill him.

 

The technique with most SAM systems (except Igla/Stinger) is to beam threat, try to triangulate it, wait for SEAD, or simply standoff attacks.

 

For theory, you can only learn from mistakes, as SAM systems, and how to defeat them are taught in special wild weaseling school, and that is definitely top secret to any nation to divulge reading material, unless its a very obsolete system (for example, SA-3 guideline is known to use a search, a tracking, a vertical and horizontal guidance kit, and a launcher).

[Ragequits]

Just one quick opinion:

CMS: Definitely use manual mode! The auto just spams unecessary amounts of chaff and flare. Moreover, semi and auto tend to choose completly unsuitable programms (e.g. chaff against IR-sam). For programms I also would recommend custome ones. I use:

Run-in: 1 Flare every 1sec X10

IR-Missle: 1 flare every 0.25sec X5

Works perfect for me. My chaff profile......I honestly do not know how good it is because.....

 

Missle evasion:

Radar SAM: Avoid! Just Avoid them. If you can locate a short range radar-SAM (e.g. Tunguska) you can easily kill it with a Maverick. But long range SAMs are nothing the A-10 should engage. It is possible but very tricky. But if you get shoot at dive low when it is at medium range and use terrain as cover. If there is no terrain you can try to drive the missle in the ground. Or you can just put it on your 9/3, push throttle to max, pump chaff when the missle is getting close and hope. On max range you might be able to stay high since you maybe don't need to make high G defensive maneuvers. Again 3/9 maybe even 6 but then you really need to be sure you can out run the missle. When you are close and it launches you can eject. If the first one doesn't get you, the other ones will.

IR-SAM: These ones are easy to evade especially when a teammate warns you prior to your RWR. Always try to get to the opposite direction from where the shoot comes. If it comes from the right you pull to the left, if it comes from the left pull right, if it comes from the front I usually invert the plane and pull the stick. Regarding the distance: the closer the shoot is the more Gs you need to pull (better save than sorry). When it's a long range shoot for IR standards you usually can pull the stick quite gentle and even try to spot the missletrail so you can take revenge. With high altitudes it is usually the same. And also you just can't pull high G turn in the A-10 at 20k. You will stall your plane and make yourself a easy target.

 

Disclaimer: I'm just a spare time pilot but i almost never get shot down with missles....always from these BMPs....they are far more dangerous than any SAM:D

[PFunk1606688187]

CMS: Definitely use manual mode!

Yes. 100% this. Semi is only useful if you program around the known limitations of the rather crude CMS logic.

 

Missle evasion:

terrain as cover.

A concept far too alien to most in these parts. Angels 16 is no place for an A-10 in a threat rich environment that include short to medium range radar SAMs. Not without robust SEAD support anyway, which DCS doesn't have.

 

If there is no terrain you can try to drive the missle in the ground.

Doesn't work. Sometime back in probably the late 50s or 60s or whenever they fleshed out the guidance in SAMs to never allow them to guide towards the ground. This doesn't work in DCS, though it used to due to it not being modeled correctly. Its been fixed as far as I know. Breaking LOS to the radar guidance works but simply flying a path towards the ground doesn't.

 

There are systems however where you can fly beneath their ability to launch. I forget which but it usually involves being below 300 or even 100 AGL. Some have no such engagement floor.

 

Or you can just put it on your 9/3...

This should be your response 99% of the time. Against an SA-19 its all you can do since countermeasures are useless in DCS versus SACLOS guidance, ie. optical.

 

push throttle to max

If you don't do this as a matter of course when you're inside bad guy country you're already making mistakes and they haven't even shot at you yet.

 

pump chaff when the missle is getting close and hope.

Actually when the missile gets close you're supposed to do a radical out of plane maneuver to try and make a last ditch attempt to evade the missile. Basically you're meant to gain visual with the threat, perform prescribed evasive maneuvers against the missile while ejecting the correct type of countermeasures and if you observe that the threat is still on an intercept course wait til about 2 seconds to impact (or something like that) and do your "here goes nothing" maneuver.

 

 

 

In general threats can be rather easy to evade if you use the right stuff against them and don't allow yourself to be engaged too close to them. DCS makes this easy because SAM logic is stupid. They always lock you well outside of max firing range and always fire at max possible range. This means that you're almost always at the worst part of the WEZ for the threat. MANPADS often get a pass on this due to them often catching you as you gain LOS to them well inside their WEZ where they were masked before and also due to engagement range being so short that even max WEZ leaves you with little time to respond.

 

The goal in missile evasion is to force the missile to fly the most energy inefficient path to you. Some types will simply miss you period if you fly the right path. The SA-19 can easily be defeated simply by flying an ideal 3/9 line evasion constantly banking towards the threat enough to maintain that 3/9 perpendicular path. The missiles will simply go aft of you harmlessly. The worst thing to do though against them is turn you 6. So many times in Tacview I've seen myself evade 2 of 3 because the first two were when I was beaming the threat and the last one hit me as I turned my 6.

 

Missiles primarily use solid fuel boosters and motors and accelerate to their maximum speed within a few seconds of launch. From then on its pure kinetic energy propelling them. The goal in the evasion is to force the missile to burn off as much of that energy as possible. Basic math tells us that you gain a proportionally greater advantage the further it is from you when you achieve that ideal flight path. They will then have to pull many more Gs to achieve lead or pure pursuit (depending on the guidance) and even if they continue to track you to the terminal point its still important because the less energy the missile has the more likely your last ditch maneuver will be successful. If the missile is basically spent by the time it reaches you your desperation barrel roll could do the trick handily.

 

Basic generic process for threat evasion:

-Receive launch alert (visual/verbal/RWR/MWS)

-attempt to visually acquire

-simultaneously maneuver the aircraft to beam the threat (3/9 line)

-use correct countermeasures if applicable

-perform correct maneuver if applicable

-observe response of missile

-if missile continues to track perform last ditch maneuver within a few seconds of estimated impact

 

Needless to say you should be buster the whole time. Performing radical maneuvers early after the launch is actually bad for you because as you lose speed and energy the missile therefore has to pull fewer Gs to maintain its path and so has a greater chance of hitting you. I also can't stress enough how important it is to find the missile visually. The RWR can't tell you how long to impact or how close it is. The MWS doesn't always detect launches either.

 

Programs:

http://www.476vfightergroup.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=45

Tacview examples:

http://www.476vfightergroup.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=313

[WildBillKelsoe]

Are chaffs aluminum foil shredded to pieces?

[PFunk1606688187]

More like fibres of aluminum or aluminum coated glass cut to different lengths.

 

Contrary to what DCS would have you believe, it does not look like a rice cracker dispensed out of the rear of the aircraft.

[Mike5560]

Do you have Tacview? if not, it's a great tool to help figure out what happened on a mission. Yes you can always watch the replay on DCS, but who wants to wait, even with time compression.

Tacview is here: http://tacview.strasoftware.com/

 

Try looking at the threat evasion Tacview example files on the 476th page here:

http://www.476vfightergroup.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=313

Some of the examples might be a little unrealistic, in the sense that the pilot keeps flying toward the threat. I sense the purpose of the demos is not to say "this is what you should do" but rather display vulnerabilities in different SAM systems.

[escaner]

If you don't do this as a matter of course when you're inside bad guy country you're already making mistakes and they haven't even shot at you yet.

 

Systematically yanking the throttles forward to max thrust because you are in enemy territory is unrealistic. Increased engine wear (which I think is not modelled in the sim), missing your planned times on route, and high fuel consumption (which drastically shortens your time on target) are a few of its drawbacks.

 

BTW, has anyone noticed an increase of ceiling and range of IR SAMs?

[Ragequits]

Doesn't work. Sometime back in probably the late 50s or 60s or whenever they fleshed out the guidance in SAMs to never allow them to guide towards the ground. This doesn't work in DCS, though it used to due to it not being modeled correctly. Its been fixed as far as I know. Breaking LOS to the radar guidance works but simply flying a path towards the ground doesn't.

 

There are systems however where you can fly beneath their ability to launch. I forget which but it usually involves being below 300 or even 100 AGL. Some have no such engagement floor.

 

Oh yes your are right just tested it. I know it used to work a long time ago but since then I never done it because it is a stupid maneuver anyway.

But I strongly disagree on always flying at max throttle in the AO. There are some rare occasions where you want to throttle up to max all the time but usually it is a waist of fuel outside combat maneuvers.

[GeorgeLKMT]

Thanks guys, this is being really helpful.

 

Do not mess with long range radar SAMs, that makes sense, but I was more worried about manpads and short range stuff, which might be harder to avoid and with manpads I just might not really see them until they fire. I remembered there's a immortal setting in DCS so I'm going to set up some SAMs and go try it.

 

Also, I installed the tacview and downloaded those SAM evasion tracks, that's really good to actually see what's happening in a big picture rather than seeing video from cockpit.

 

Programs; manual is it then. I also downloaded Eddie's custom CMS and it looks much better than the default ones but it also confirms that I'll have to learn a bunch of them. I first thought I might create like 4 custom ones (2 for rapid dispense, 2 for continous), but that's probably nonsense and this looks much better and more flexible.

[PFunk1606688187]

Systematically yanking the throttles forward to max thrust because you are in enemy territory is unrealistic. Increased engine wear (which I think is not modelled in the sim), missing your planned times on route, and high fuel consumption (which drastically shortens your time on target) are a few of its drawbacks.

 

If you're in the midst of an attack run in which you are most vulnerable while carrying ordnance that leaves your drag profile at its highest for the mission then yes using max power is basically required in order to maximize your potential for survival.

 

A-10 engines spool up real slow. A-10 engines are thrust poor. A-10 gains altitude like a pig. A-10 gains speed like a pig. A-10 burns speed like a pig. A-10 is a pig.

 

For engine wear the engines are pretty robust. They apparently used to make jokes about memorizing the bold face procedures for dual engine flameouts because it was basically unheard of. Again, in bad guy country in the middle of a highly vulnerable period on an attack. There's also the fact that there's an automatic engine governor that ensures the plane never flies beyond a rated maximum which is well below the full power output of the engines.

 

You don't run a mission 100% of the time in bad guy land likely to get shot at, you stage it around safer and more dangerous airspace. Thats either/or lateral versus vertical. Kosovo would be an example of a vertical distinction between safer and more dangerous whereas your traditional 80s Fulda Gap or Iraq war scenario is more like the lateral type.

 

If you're flying real low you need speed to ensure you can pop up and still have enough jam to be evasive. If you're higher you still need more power because the engines produce considerably less thrust the higher you go. If you're orbiting or holding while planning an attack or reconnoitering from further out, ingressing or egressing or taking comms for the 9 line etc then yea you set engines to something more fuel efficient. If you have a reason to be slower, like hitting a certain speed for a certain type of delivery, yes pull power back. If you're in a dive greater than 45' yes pull them throttles back. Otherwise in the most dangerous part of your mission the A-10 needs every bit of thrust you can wrench out of it.

 

Loaded for bear a typical realistic drag profile will give you a hard time hitting 300 KIAS at buster. I know for a fact most people around here fly anything but a realistic drag profile. Most people fly the airplane so fat and draggy you'd be lucky to dodge one SAM without ripping the wings off.

 

For hitting fuel windows thats easy, you have bingo/joker fuel loads and then you have basic airmanship to stretch it out for your window at the tanker. Beyond that the bingo numbers exist to ensure you can miss that window and still make it home, if we're talking real life here. Take the A-10 up to Angels 29 and enjoy the scenery on your slow flight home at 170KIAS.

 

Whats the line I read somewhere, somewhat relevant, G limits for the airframe are only relevant if a future flight is likely. ;)

 

But I strongly disagree on always flying at max throttle in the AO. There are some rare occasions where you want to throttle up to max all the time but usually it is a waist of fuel outside combat maneuvers.

Basically if you think its likely someone is gonna shoot at you why are you not getting as fast as you possibly can? If your RWR is lit up with lock tones and you're flying right at it or near it or there are enemies within a few miles of your why are you saving fuel? If you're getting shot at when you think its safe to fly at more fuel efficient speeds why does your intel suck so bad?

Edited April 12, 2015 by P*Funk

[Ragequits]

Basically if you think its likely someone is gonna shoot at you why are you not getting as fast as you possibly can? If your RWR is lit up with lock tones and you're flying right at it or near it or there are enemies within a few miles of your why are you saving fuel? If you're getting shot at when you think its safe to fly at more fuel efficient speeds why does your intel suck so bad?

Calm down buddy :) I said on occasions it is required, like the case you discribed. But not always.

[PFunk1606688187]

Calm down buddy :) I said on occasions it is required, like the case you discribed. But not always.

 

Oh I'm being calm. This is a purely conversational tone, I'm just a know it all. ;)

 

But I never (meant to say) always go buster, just go buster anytime you think you'll get shot at, or something very near it.

 

Andy Bush in his old articles on SimHQ when talking about the Fulda Gap tactics said something like Think 300/300 and you'll be fine. That meant 300 knots and 300 AGL. 300 knots with a decent loadout is gonna be at or near full power.

 

I guess I should have clarified bad guy country as being where he has teeth, not the entire AO as described by some guy using MS paint on a theatre map for the briefing. There are always pockets of bad airspace and good airspace, even over the red line. If you're near the bad stuff and you're saving fuel so you can stay out for an extra 45 minutes you're thinking backwards. You don't literally want to spend 100% of the time inside a possible SAM WEZ. If you don't have a spot you can regroup at within 2 minutes flight time at 300 knots you're in a bad kind of way in my estimation. Then again virtual pilots have weird priorities since we don't have to worry about dying.

[RAZBAM_ELMO]

^ +1, this is my kinda guy.